THE REST OF THE STORY. . .

by Michael Hurst - from the Winter 2001 newsletter

Early in December 2001, I read an article in an American POW newsletter by historian Greg Michno, who had written a soon to be published book on the subject of the hellships, called “Death on the Hellships”. Greg had somehow obtained official Japanese records and decrypts of sailing rosters and orders for all of the convoys and ships carrying POWs. He also had captured records and documents, plus offical US Navy records showing ships sunk, places and dates. His research is exhausting, and he finally corrects all the myths about the hellships - their names, numbers of POWs carried, dates and places of sinking, so in my opinion this is the most exhaustive and accurate work of its kind ever done.

For more than a year I had been searching to try to find out which hellship L/Sgt.Alan T. Bowman of the 125th Anti-tank Reg't. had been on when he was brought to Taiwan in mid-September 1944 (see the Spring/Summer 2000 newsletter). Greg sent me copies of some of his material for my research, and was extremely useful in helping to track down Alan’s ship. So now here is the story as I have been able to put it together after working with Greg (we sent emails back and forth to each other for more than 20 days in December over this issue).

Alan Bowman was one of a group of so-called “fit” POWs that were returned to Singapore from Thailand upon completion of the Death Railway. He was held in River Valley Road Camp until the summer of 1944, when on July 4, he and 1286 other POWs were put aboard the Hofuku Maru, which was a 5825 ton cargo ship. It was in convoy SHIMI-05, consisting of 10 ships - 5 of which carried POWs. There were about 5000 POWs in total, making this the largest group of POWs shipped at one time during the war.

The convoy left Singapore and made for Miri, Borneo which it reached on July 8. There the Hofuku Maru and another ship (not carrying POWs), dropped out to wait for another convoy. The rest of the ships reformed into convoy MI-08 and proceeded to Manila in the Philippines which was reached on July 16.

For a week this convoy lay at anchor in Manila harbour with the men suffering disease, starvation and thirst. After another re-organization, convoy MI-08 with two ships carrying POWs for a total of 19 vessels, sailed from Manila on July 23 and reached Takao, Formosa on July 27. Here the convoy was re-organized again, and on July 30, 16 ships left Takao heading for Japan. On August 1 they pulled into Keelung, Formosa and waited there until the 4th when they set out across the East China Sea for Japan. On August 9 the convoy was attacked and two cargo ships were sunk - neither of which carried POWs. On August 13 the convoy reached Moji, Japan.

Meanwhile the Hofuku Maru had completed its journey to the Philippines, arriving on July 19. It lay in Manila harbour until mid-September while its engines were repaired. The POWs on board suffered terribly from disease, hunger and thirst and finally a number were removed to the Bilibid Prison hospital in Manila. These men were replaced by a similar number from the Philippines making a total of 1289 POWs on board.

On September 20, Convoy MATA-27 - with 11 ships including the Hofuku Maru (the only one carrying POWs) sailed from Manila and anchored at Subic Bay for the night. On the 21st as it headed for Takao Formosa the convoy was attacked by American carrier aircraft about 80 miles north of Corregidor. At 10:35 am the planes from the USS Hornet attacked the Hofuku Maru and before the day was finished the entire convoy had been sunk by more than 100 American planes.

About 200 of the POWs either swam to shore or were picked up by the Japanese and taken back to the Philippines. 49 other POWs - Alan was in this group - were picked up and taken by the Jap escort ships to Takao, Formosa - arriving on September 25th. A diary entry by surviving Heito POW Basil Baker stated on September 26, 1944 - “about 49 new prisoners due tonight - rumoured to be shipwrecked - all very sick, one dead.” These were the men from the Hofuku Maru who had arrived the day before. The next day another of the men died and several days later on October 6th, Alan died.

So finally we have it - from the official records - what happened to some of these hellships we have been reading about and talking about over the past year or so. It is so great to finally be able to bring this story to a close.